


Kiss Me Like You Mean It

by Chash



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 10:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5781964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chash/pseuds/Chash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke was kind of looking forward to filming a kissing scene with Bellamy. And then it's the actual worst scene of all time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss Me Like You Mean It

**Author's Note:**

> An anon prompted me for Bellarke based on [this beautiful Carrie Fisher quote](http://ponyregrets.tumblr.com/post/137744859819/heres-the-thing-theres-a-difference-between), and that's obviously my jam. Have some pre-premiere fluff!

Clarke is a professional, which is what makes the whole Bellamy Blake thing so frustrating. For one thing, she doesn’t fuck her costars. Not when they’re her costars. And for another, she knows better than to read into on-screen chemistry. She’s done amazing love scenes with actors she loathed as people, so of course she knows that. Everyone knows that.

She just really _does_ like Bellamy. She can’t help it. It took a couple weeks for them to get to being friends; he’d never actually seen one of her films, assumed she had the career she does because of her family connections, and had therefore basically been a dick to her off camera. Clarke is always happy to return dickishness with dickishness, and it made for a tense shooting environment at the start. But Clarke’s work really does speak for itself, and a few nights out drinking with the cast and crew had them talking, and then really getting along. Bellamy is smart and funny, with a sarcastic, self-deprecating sense of humor that Clarke appreciates. When the two of them get going, it’s like no one else exists.

So, in spite of everything, she’s been letting herself enjoy the development of their on-screen romance. Playing against Bellamy has been her favorite part of the film, and their chemistry really is off the charts, everyone’s said it. The flirtations they’ve filmed so far have been great, crackling with tension, and the scene where Bellamy finally loses it, gives in and kisses her, is amazing on paper.

It’s just that--the reality kind of sucks, honestly. Bellamy’s got this _reputation_ , one of those Hollywood heartthrobs. He had a different model on his arm every week for the first few years of his career, although he’s gotten over it. At thirty, he told Clarke the novelty of having meaningless sex with beautiful people just because he can has worn off, and Clarke can relate. And it’s not like fucking models is a sign of actual sexual prowess, but--he slept with Clarke’s friend Raven, and dated one of Raven’s friend ls for a while, and Raven’s reaction to Clarke booking a movie with him had basically been, “Yeah, get some.”

But Bellamy is _awful_ in the scene.

It creeps up on her slowly. He seems a little nervous when they’re waiting for the shoot to start, jiggling his leg as he reviews the script in the seat next to Clarke, but that’s sweet. Feels good, even. She puts her hand on his thigh and smiles, and he returns it, sheepish.

“Too much coffee?” she teases.

“You know I don’t believe that’s possible,” he says, and she laughs.

“Yeah, that might be the cause of a lot of your problems.”

“Hey, don’t get carried away. I also had a shitty childhood. Let’s not jump straight to blaming caffeine. There’s plenty of blame to go around.”

“Sorry, sorry. You’re a walking disaster with complex psychological issues that will take therapists years to fully unravel.”

He flashes her a grin. “I’m saying.” His leg has stopped moving, but now his fingers are tapping his script, and looks down at them, like he didn’t know they were doing that. “Ready?” he asks her.

“I’m pretty sure I know all my lines.”

“You only have like three,” he says. “You better.”

“Lines are hard,” she says, and he snorts.

“Yeah, yeah. I feel so bad for you. Are you the highest paid female actress in Hollywood yet, or do you have to kill Jennifer Lawrence first?”

“You know you don’t actually have to kill people to get a better salary than they do, right?”

“I knew I was doing something wrong.”

“You two all set?” asks the director, Indra, and Bellamy’s eyes flick to Clarke. She tells herself it’s not anticipation or excitement stirring in her gut, not any more than usual. It’s just a scene. She’s done plenty of scenes like this. It’s fine.

“Ready,” says Clarke, and Bellamy follows her onto set.

And that’s when the disaster begins.

The scene is a little off before they even make it to the kissing, Bellamy’s tone not quite natural, his movements jerky and strange. Indra calls for a cut halfway through, and Bellamy seems to visibly brace himself for the second take. Which makes Clarke nervous, because--this isn’t a big deal, right? She thought it was going to be _fun_.

This time she’s off, because Bellamy is freaking her out, and between the two of them they blow two more takes.

“Is there a problem,” says Indra, in that voice she has that means she’s not asking a question. She already knows the answer she wants. The answer is _no_ , and Clarke and Bellamy exchange a look. “I don’t care what you do in your spare time, but if it’s going to affect my film--”

“Nope,” says Bellamy, instantly.

“Nothing’s wrong,” says Clarke. They nod, and that’s enough to get them back into the swing of it, nailing the actual dialogue.

Which just leaves the kiss.

The problems with the kiss aren’t _entirely_ on Bellamy. He’s definitely a problem, because he seems kind of hesitant about kissing her, and even though it’s not _real_ kissing, he manages to act like his lips have never touched another human’s lips, like, ever. But Indra wants them to try it a bunch of different ways, hesitant and passionate and desperate, and none of them are _real_ , because screen kisses never are, but they’re all basically the worst screen kisses Clarke has ever experienced, and she has no idea what to do, and her inability to figure it out just makes him _worse_.

It’s a real letdown.

Indra, at least, seems pleased in the end. “That’s going to look great with some edits,” she says, nodding. “Good job, you two. Bellamy, I’ll see you tomorrow. Clarke, you’re off until Monday. Let’s clean it up, people.”

“That was exciting,” Bellamy mutters. Clarke thinks he’s flushing a little, under his makeup.

“Screen kissing sucks,” she offers, even though it really does feel awful. She was hoping the issue would be that he wanted to kiss her and it was weird because they kept trying to do it for real, not that he seemed barely able to look at her.

“Yeah,” he says. “See you Monday?”

They’ll often hang out after they’re done cleaning up and changing, but--fuck. He probably noticed she was excited or interested or--whatever. He must not have known she had a thing for him, and something or someone tipped him off, he somehow realized she has a little crush on him, and now it’s awkward, because kissing someone who’s interested in you when you don’t feel the same is awkward, especially if you’re required to kiss them for work. On camera.

She gives him a weak smile. “Yeah. Monday.”

*

The whole thing is embarrassing enough that when Monty, the lighting guy, invites her out for drinks on Saturday night, Clarke nearly turns him down. But avoiding her coworkers and semi-friends because she’s a little embarrassed would just make everything worse, and convince Bellamy he was right about the whole thing.

He seems happy to see her, even if there’s still a little tension lurking around his eyes, so Clarke is aggressively and completely normal. She does shots with Monty, Jasper, and Miller, argues with Lexa and Anya about how dumb the grimdark trend is, and kicks Bellamy’s ass at darts.

She is not thinking about kissing him at all. Really.

She is thinking about kissing Lexa, maybe, because Lexa is hot and that would definitely make Bellamy think she doesn’t want to kiss him, and also thinking about going home because these are bad thoughts to be having, ever, when someone proposes spin-the-bottle.

“Are we twelve?” she asks Bellamy, because being kind of awkward apparently isn’t enough to keep them from drifting together in social situations.

“You were playing spin-the-bottle when you were twelve? I still thought girls had cooties when I was twelve.”

“We do have cooties.”

“I knew it.”

He sits next to her in the circle, which Clarke is torn on. It’s always nice to have him sitting with her, like they’re friends, together in this, but it also feels like you’re less likely to hit someone sitting next to you with the bottle, although Clarke is pretty sure it’s not true, in terms of probability. But she can’t help wondering if he thinks that too, and if that’s why he selected that position.

Maybe she _is_ twelve.

Clarke has never witnessed a game of spin-the-bottle that isn’t basically an excuse for one person to try to kiss the person they like, and this one is no exception. In this case, it’s Monty--or, rather, Jasper, scheming on Monty’s behalf--wanting to make out with Bellamy’s friend Miller, and it works for him. Monty has apparently some skills with a bottle that Clarke never learned, because by the time most teenagers were playing spin-the-bottle at parties, she was already an actress, living a very inappropriate actress life. She never did this kind of thing until she got older, and it became nostalgic for most people and kind of weird for her.

But it’s not bad. She kisses the second director, Lincoln, and Monroe from props, and Bellamy kisses Jasper and Miller and makes snide remarks to Clarke and it’s fun.

And then she spins and hits him, and her heart plummets. He’d kissed Jasper and Miller with good cheer and apparent skill, which just means that the whole kissing thing is _personal_ , that it’s about her, and now they’re going to have an awful kiss _here_ , in front of everyone, off camera, and she’s going feel even worse.

His mouth twitches into a small smile. “Oh good, second chance,” he says, and before she can react to that, he slides his hand into her hair and kisses her.

He’s got stubble now, the scrape of it slightly rough against her skin, and his lips are soft and firm, free of stage makeup. He smells like himself, a kind of earthy cologne that makes him seem clean rather than dirty, which Clarke never understood, and his fingers are firm against her hair, a little callused, and perfect.

She opens instantly at the first hint of his tongue, and he makes a soft sound--happiness? relief? she can’t tell--and presses closer. Clarke lets her own hands grab the front of his t-shirt, pulling him against her. He tastes mostly like spit and alcohol, but she still can’t get enough. He’s kissing her like it’s all he wants to do for the rest of his life, his tongue firm against hers, his free arm wrapping around her back, and it’s _everything_.

“Yeah, just spin again, they’re not coming back,” she hears, vaguely, when she finally pulls away. Bellamy’s staring at her, mouth red, eyes dark, breath heavy, and she can’t quite get a hold on herself. Her whole body feels like it’s on fire.

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see movement, someone else doing something else, but her hands are still in Bellamy’s shirt and his hand is still in her hair and she doesn’t know how to look away from him.

She wets her lips, about to speak, but his eyes drop to her mouth at the movement and she sees the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. When his eyes meet hers again, they’re almost black, and Clarke’s voice dies in her throat.

Thankfully, Miller’s voice is functioning fine. “We won’t be offended if you guys leave,” he says.

“We’ll probably be offended if you don’t,” Anya adds. “No one wants to watch that.”

Bellamy seems to remember for the first time that they have an audience, and he blinks a few times like he’s coming back to himself. It’s more than a little flattering, just how affected he seems to be.

Not that she’s much better off.

“I could use another round,” she tells him, when she can speak.

“Yeah,” he agrees, his own voice hoarse. He stands and offers her his hand, doesn’t let go as he pulls her back into the actual bar. When it looks like he’s actually thinking about getting more drinks, she takes the lead, navigating them through the crowd and out into the cooler night air.

It seems like a good idea until she realizes this is the part where she should say something, and all she comes up with is, “I don’t fuck costars.”

He nods. “Yeah, good policy.”

“I date people I like, though,” she says, giving his hand a squeeze.

“Huh,” he says, and nods again. “Did you know I have an actual reputation as being the worst stage-kisser in the business?”

“No.”

“I don’t know why I was hoping you didn’t. I sort of figured maybe it would be better with you. Like--I’d magically think it wasn’t the most awkward thing in the fucking world because I wanted to make out with you anyway. But it was just even more awkward. I should have warned you.”

Clarke laughs, soft. “You were really terrible.”

“It’s weird, right? You don’t want to be too eager, that’s creepy, but you don’t want to pull away too soon, and you need to look into it but you can’t actually _get_ into it. I’ve tried to make people plan it out with me, but talking through fake-kissing you just sounded like a fucking disaster, honestly.”

“And what we ended up with was so much better.”

“Shut up. Some of that is going to look good on camera.” He rubs his thumb against hand. “So, um, this dating friends thing. Do you do it when they’re still your costars, or do we have to wait until filming is done? I’m just trying to plan the rest of my night.”

He looks so earnest and nervous that Clarke _has_ to kiss him again, and it’s even better the second time.

“I could start that now,” she murmurs, when they finally break apart.

“Thank fucking god,” he says, and gets them a taxi.

*

They have one more to film for the movie, the last scene, for romantic closure. Clarke assumes it can’t be worse than last time, less because she and Bellamy are making out regularly now and more because the first time was so bad, it seemed impossible to make it worse.

But Bellamy has a gift.

“How are you at counting in your head?” he asks.

Clarke is staring in horror. “Did you draw a diagram?”

“It’s easier,” he says, petulant.

“There’s a _timetable_. Has this ever worked for anyone?”

“No one ever thinks about this stuff.”

“That might be why they’re better at fake kissing than you are.” She puts her head on his shoulder. “Do you worry about this with real kissing? You can’t, or you’d suck at it.”

“There’s no camera and I can follow real signals,” he says.

“Okay, but--I’m your girlfriend. You know I want to kiss you. You’re good at figuring out what I want. How is this not a transferable skill?”

“It’s not _us_. I’m a character.”

“And every character you have ever played is a shitty kisser?”

“I’m getting typecast. Not my fault.”

“I’m not following a timetable. We’ll be _fine_.”

“Let the record show I tried.”

The saving grace is that it _does_ look good on camera. Natural and even pretty hot. They make a very appealing couple.

“It almost looks like you don’t want to die,” she whispers to him at the premiere.

“I’m a really good actor.”

“Worst fake-kisser of all time.”

“Someone’s got to do it.” He presses his lips against her temple. “At least the real thing’s not so bad.”

She smiles, probably lights up with it. But it’s not like anyone else will see. “Yeah,” she says. “Nothing beats the real thing.”


End file.
